Black Tuesday
by Reve
Summary: Dib reflects on his dreams, and how they relate to his life and feelings. (Odd, introspective fic.)


Author : Roku [sesshoumaruchan@aol.com]  
Rating : NR. I can't think of a rating... I put PG for the thingie, but  
it's a personal thing. There's suggested stuff and there's angst, but   
it's not really anything I find offensive. Decide yourself, though, okay?  
Fandom : 'Invader Zim'  
Pairings : Nnn... nothing blatant, just read... ;D  
Sidenotes : ...'tis Dib's POV, and reflective.  
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I'm not claiming in any way, shape or form that Dib (or Zim) belongs to  
me. I'm not sure if you can even tell this is a Zim fic, cause it's all  
angsty reflection, but believe me, I'm not making any money on this. Zim  
is not mine in any way... 'tis just inspiration.  
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*Black Tuesday*  
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I hate Tuesday.  
  
It's six twenty-seven am when I'm suddenly awake enough to feel   
the slight muscles in my arms twitch. I want to keep my eyes closed-   
stay in the dream I was dreaming... although it wasn't anything good.   
Actually could be considered a nightmare, if those kinds of things   
scared me. It's more interesting to me.  
  
I've been dreaming of a stream I have to crawl through...along   
the bottom... no breath. On the shoreline are armies of shadows that   
want to tear me apart. In the water there are leeches and it is so dark  
I cannot see where I'm going. I get tangled in something... a giant   
solid underwater spiderweb I can't see... I'm trying to make myself   
shrink to weave through the mystery pillars...  
  
...but then the crashing outside wakes me up. So I lay here   
with my eyes closed, hoping that if I pretend I'm still asleep, the   
dream won't stop... like a movie. I want to keep watching. But now it's  
on pause. On the other side of my shades, which I can hear flapping in   
the wind of the open window, mechanical buzzing echoes off of a thousand  
suburban outer walls of stucco and white-painted siding. Every Tuesday  
morning the lawn-care people come. Really early. And I always forget to  
close the window.  
  
I try to shut it out- squint my eyes tighter and focus on my   
dream theatre again. Now it's like one of the choose-your-own-adventure  
books I used to read and still sometimes do when no one's paying   
attention. I creep through the dark web, unbreathing. I feel the water   
cool against my cheeks, and my short hair swaying like some underwater   
plant. I move until it's like I'm dancing.  
  
But it's not the same. Nothing around me responds. I can control   
myself, but nothing else. When I am dreaming the water moves around me   
and the shadows flicker on the surface. Now the water is a still   
hologram of black jello.  
  
I open my eyes. The buzzing outside rings in my ears, and my   
room is already obnoxious-light, even through the thin fabric of my   
windowshades. My eyes feel burnt, staring up at the crackly white paint  
on my ceiling- and the places where there's leftover masking tape. I   
blink harshly. My head is pounding. I feel like I'm strung with wires...  
I'm going to explode, just as soon as I finish imploding.  
  
The machines outside hum louder. I grit my teeth and purse my   
lips and want them to go away. I guess that I lay there for a long time,  
because my alarm starts screaming in my ear- beepbeepbeeping in time   
with the buzzing outside.  
  
My bed barely creaks as I flip over and clap my hand down on   
the glowing blue 'sleep' button. Even though I'm not sleeping. I turn   
back over and fold my arms behind my very, very heavy head... look down  
and I can see my feet. I blink and it hurts.  
  
Faded yellow sheets are tangled around my skinny ankles. It   
looks funny. It looks like I'm staring through a peekhole- my body is   
getting smaller and smaller until it is my feet. I am a skinny blair   
witch stickman dipped in ink. I am wearing black knee socks and black   
sweatpants and a black X-files t-shirt that is way too big for me. The   
sleeves touch my elbows. All of these things are tangled around my   
limbs, and it is seventy degrees outside.  
  
I feel misplaced in this bed. Yellow-white sheets that used to   
be bright like dandelions make me look like I'm a shadow, except for my  
skinny pallid arms, sprawled on either side of me. I should get new   
sheets. I found these in the closet a week ago. Mom bought them for me   
when I was little. I wouldn't mind being little again.  
  
Mind drifting and bouncing off itself, I look near my feet   
again. The tangled once-yellow sheets have a small dark stain I didn't   
notice before. My head screams through my temples as I sit up and   
untangle myself, holding the sheet in both hands and looking at the   
thin fabric. There is a small, dried spot of blood. Maybe from a long   
time ago.  
  
I'm not going to school today.  
  
---  
  
Much later, my alarm goes off again. I unplug it. The buzzing   
outside is getting further and further away. My head hurts so much I   
keep moving it like maybe something will fall out.  
  
I think about my dream and my sheets, which are now on the   
floor. I lie on my stripped matress in my cocoon of black cotton and   
squint my eyes at nothing.  
  
I'm not sure what time it is. I think it may be around noon. At  
skool, I would be eating lunch... right now I'm not hungry. I think   
about the lunchroom. I think about eating alone. If I close my burning   
eyes I can see tables full of kids who are probably talking about me,   
and I can see a petite boy with greenish skin sitting in the corner and  
scowling. He's alone and his eyes are hard, but he bites his lip. I   
blink slowly from the opposite side of the room, and he doesn't see.  
  
Everything is still as I push the papers in front of me on the   
table around aimlessly. It's been a while since he arrived. I remember   
the obsession I had with exposing every secret.  
  
The hands on the clock don't seem to move.  
  
I still wonder. Still think about it, and about him. I don't   
feel a drive now, anymore. I sit here and wonder too much, and I feel   
him staring and probably wondering why I don't attack him anymore.  
  
My eyes are closed. I can see all this. My temples pound pulses  
that are the soundtrack to the movie playing inside of my eyelids.  
  
I can't tell the difference between silence and noise as I stand  
up and push my chair away from me, the cuffs of my trenchcoat brushing   
my knuckles. Everyone seems monotonous as I cross the dirty floor to   
the corner wall... so slowly. My boots click, and I blink my eyes   
behind the transparent wall of my glasses. Ink-black hair is creeping   
into in my peripheral vision.  
  
It's a million years until I reach the table where this small,   
decevingly quiet boy-but-not-really is sitting all alone. It seems that  
every body is another string of a web pulling me back. My feet are   
heavy. My eyes sting. My throat screams silently. I touch my pale hands  
to the surface of the round table. No one moves.  
  
The only sound is a shy plop as a tear I didn't want to fall   
drips onto the faux-wooden table. I drag a hand over it- deny its   
existance and circle around to the other side of the table to where   
the only chair is. Thin, long-fingered hands clad in shiny black gloves  
cling to the edges of the seat. Everything is still like the winter,   
and I feel like I'm suddenly in the eye of a storm... so horrendous...   
I'm the calm...  
  
I lean down, thoughts and fears and confusion rushing out of me  
in torrents, and my eyelids feel heavy. My hand rests next to a tray of  
untouched food on the table, and I can't even see the cool, smooth skin  
I press my lips to, so softly. Can't see the red-tinged green cheek, or   
the thin frame. I move away, eyes still closed, and brush my fingertips   
over the skin I just kissed.  
  
When I open my eyes I'm laying on an empty matress in a dark   
room. My cheeks burn. My eyes sting. I touch my warm fingers to my lips.  
  
And it makes perfect sense, but none...  
  
...there is no response in a waking dream. I will never stop wondering...  
  
I am suspended in a web of black-jello-dreaming, and I can't   
open my mouth to breathe in or out. It really is... suffocating... 


End file.
